Breville Paradice 9 BFP638 Food Processor and Dicer Review

The dicing kit turns out true cubes. Cucumber comes out as clean cubes, and a mirepoix is done in well under a minute against many minutes with a knife. That is the feature you are buying, and it works.

The motor is a 625 W brushless induction unit with direct drive and high torque. It runs around 72 dB in use, quiet for its class, and it does not bog down on nut butters, purees or a full bowl of roasted squash.

Nut butter and pureeing are genuine strengths. An 8 oz batch of pistachios with a teaspoon of oil comes out smooth and shiny, and a large batch of roasted pumpkin purees in about two minutes.

The adjustable slicer offers 15 levels from 0.3 mm to 5.0 mm, from paper-thin apple and fennel to thick potato rounds, and the reversible shredder covers coarse and fine.

Volume work is quick. A quarter cabbage at a time goes through in under a minute, and a whole cauliflower rices in a few pulses without turning to mush.

The integrated caddy inside the bowl holds the blades and discs, and the dicing kit sits on top of it. In a small kitchen that is the second-best thing about the machine.

The feed chute is 4.7 inches wide, two-in-one with a large half-oval and a smaller insert, and the pusher doubles as a measuring cup. Controls are three buttons: Power, Start/Pause and Pulse, with nothing to learn.

The warranty is 2 years on the product and 30 years on the motor, the longest motor coverage in its class and a fair reflection of the induction motor. Buyers on Amazon most often praise build quality, power, ease of cleaning and the built-in storage, and the dicing feature and the easy bowl-and-lid click get specific mentions.

There is one dice size only, 0.5 inch (12 mm). That is smaller than many cooks want for home fries or roasted vegetables, and there is no second grid.

The dicing assembly is fiddly. It is a multi-part stack of grid, blade, gear box and cleaning cap, the blade has to face a set direction, and the last slice usually stays on the grid, so you will reach for a wooden spoon or a butter knife to clear it.

There is no mini-bowl insert, no julienne disc, no French-fry disc, no whisk or whipping attachment, no variable speeds and no timer. If you want any of those, this is the wrong machine.

Soft and ripe foods are out for slicing and dicing. Ripe tomatoes, avocado, grapes and soft cheese smear rather than cut. Use firm cheese only, and give it 45 minutes in the freezer first.

Stiff dough is the weak point. The dough blade handles shortcrust and softer doughs well, but a stiff, low-hydration dough can trip the overload protection and stop the motor. The manual says to unplug and let it cool before restarting, and to add water a tablespoon at a time if the dough is too dry.

The S-blade can bind to the spindle with food residue and take effort to separate. Cleaning around the dicing grid is the slow part: Breville recommends hand washing, with only occasional dishwasher use for the dicing parts, while the rest of the parts are dishwasher safe.

The Breville+ app offers a large recipe library and classes, but it does not control the machine, so treat it as a recipe source rather than a feature. Durability is the mixed note among owners: some buyers report wear over time, and the warranty is the backstop.

The 7.7-inch width is what makes it apartment-friendly. The 17.5-inch height is the number to check against your cabinets, and the dicing caddy stored inside the bowl adds height, so detach it and store it in a drawer if clearance is tight.

At 9 cups it handles a family's everyday jobs, including a double batch of mayonnaise or a full pie's worth of dough, but it is not a batch-cooking machine. The induction motor, not the wattage number, is what makes it quiet and long-lived.

The Breville Paradice 9 is offered as model BFP638BSS1BNA1 in Brushed Stainless Steel and as model BFP638DBL1BNA1 in Damson Blue. Choose the one whose color suits your counter.